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Develop Yourself
To change careers and land your first job as a Software Engineer, you need more than just great software development skills - you need to develop yourself.
Welcome to the podcast that helps you develop your skills, your habits, your network and more, all in hopes of becoming a thriving Software Engineer.
Develop Yourself
#233 - How Mindi Navigated ADHD, Bootcamp Burnout, and Landed a Dev Role
Send a text and I may answer it on next episode (I cannot reply from this service 😢)
We cover:
- Why even smart, driven people need help when learning to code
- What ADHD looks like as a software engineer—and how she manages it
- How burnout hit hard after landing the job
- Why public speaking became a surprising superpower
- Getting hired without ever doing a technical interview
- Her honest take on AI tools, TypeScript, LinkedIn vs. Twitter, and more
If you’re an adult switching careers, neurodivergent, or just wondering if bootcamps still work—this conversation is for you.
👉 Connect with Mindi:
Shameless Plugs
🧠 (NEW) Parsity's The Inner Circle Program - a highly customized roadmap to take you from 0 to hired. For career changers who want to pivot into software.
💼 Zubin's LinkedIn (ex-lawyer, former Google, Brian-look-a-like)
👂🏻Easier Said Than Done Podcast
Already a developer? Check out 👉 Not Another Course
Serious about joining Parsity? Schedule a call with me ☎️
Welcome to the Develop Yourself podcast, where we teach you everything you need to land your first job as a software developer by learning to develop yourself, your skills, your network and more. I'm Brian, your host. In this episode, I'm going to talk with Mindy, a career changer, and I encourage you to look at the chapters in the show notes so you can skip around and find the pieces that you may find the most interesting or applicable to you. We talk about everything from finding a job as a career changer, her experience going to a bootcamp and why she thinks it was still worth it, as well as dealing with ADHD as an adult in a new career and how she handles that in the day-to-day responsibility of being a software engineer, and a whole lot more. So use the chapter markers to skip around. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode and I really hope it makes a difference in your outlook on the job market, switching careers and the reality of transitioning into software as an adult.
Speaker 1:As usual, if you have questions or you have a suggestion for the show, please email me at brian at parsityio. And now time for the show. Today I'm joined by Mindy Weick. She made a career pivot from nonprofit work and real estate into a software engineer at a real estate SaaS company. She has a really incredible story. I think it's going to hit on a lot of things that we often talk about on this show that you're going to find particularly useful if you're an early career developer. Welcome to the show, mindy.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Brangan Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really cool meeting you. We met through a fellow LinkedIn connection. Reason number you know 5086, why you should probably be on LinkedIn and meeting people. But yeah, you're one of the many people I've met through LinkedIn. That is really cool and willing to share their story online and you have a bit of an interesting background like most people I meet. Most people on the show tend to have like a non-traditional background because those are interesting stories. It's funny because I feel like I've met so many people from non-traditional backgrounds that it almost feels like the traditional background is becoming the non-traditional one. But can you tell us a little bit about how you transitioned into tech and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny you say that. I was just thinking the same thing. I hear so many about people transitionings but it does seem like we're the majority now.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's true. I went to college and got a degree in communication and worked in real estate for four or five years. We provide a CRM and website for our customers and I had done lots of work with CRMs and lots of work with our website while I was in the real estate assistant role. So I was pretty familiar with all that, and what I liked about it is that there were a lot of problems that nobody else wanted to touch and that's where I had the most fun, because nobody else was there. I was doing all of the hard work. I was doing all of the like, figuring out how things worked, and quickly became the go-to.
Speaker 2:Later on I transitioned into onboarding, which I was very clear about not wanting to do because I was about to start. My boss my previous boss would tell you the same Like. I was very clear I don't want to do this. But I was very clear I don't want to do this. But I was getting ready to start my boot camp because I decided, after a while of doing support, I wanted to do a boot camp. I was trying to learn on my own. It wasn't really working for me. I needed a little bit more structure because I have so many questions and I wanted somebody to dive into things with me. Oh yeah, I definitely want to dig into that later, for sure. Yeah, um. So I started my boot camp. I was an onboarding manager on the side, which was high stress. Um had this huge technical project of like migrating our entire um process to this automated system, which was it was just a lot, um, but I finished my boot camp.
Speaker 2:Yes, I finished my boot camp. I did nights and weekends for nine months and graduated huzzah. But that entire time that I talked, or that I was in the boot camp, I was talking about how much I wanted to become an engineer, like I'm doing this boot camp. It's so exciting and I talked about it all the time you might go linkedin or like social media in general I'm talking about at work like I I actually asked if they would help, like help me pay for it.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize we were in the middle of an acquisition, so that didn't pan out, but they were very supportive of of my desire to transition. So whenever it came time that I graduated, lo and behold when chanel spot opened up for me. So it's funny, I haven't actually been through a ton of like technical interviews, but I think that that just highlights the power of networking for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure the more you talk about it, whether it's implied your company or somewhere else. The more you talk about it, the more people are willing to like see you in that, like wearing that hat or in that position and help you get there if you're not there yet.
Speaker 1:Damn, that's a okay. I like. I like a lot of what you said and it tracks and it's it reflects a lot of what I've heard other people and what I see at Parsity how people tend to be successful. There's a lot of clues and a lot of breadcrumbs. I feel like from your story and other stories we can put together and kind of think what are some patterns here? We tend to see and you you mentioned a few that I see a lot talking about what you're doing, even though it's uncomfortable. Now a lot of people are hearing this. You're probably thinking, wait, you told your current company you want to be a software engineer. Weren't you freaked out that they were going to be like what Get out of here?
Speaker 2:You know no-transcript it, but there was just so much red tape with that acquisition that I wasn't aware of at the time. Yeah, I think I think it's scary, but it's definitely worthwhile, because like how else would I have gotten my position with my current company if I didn't ask for it?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a really important lesson, like I've I mean, I hate to admit, I kind of just learned this Like you need to ask and make your intentions known. Or else, like you could, because, imagine, if you just like I'm out of this company, I'm going to go somewhere else, and you didn't like make that intention clear and you could have'm out of this company, I'm going to go somewhere else, and you didn't like make that intention clear and you could have missed out on this really great opportunity. You know, without just like asking. I remember leaving a company because I wanted a raise and instead of just asking for the raise, I'm like I'm just going to leave, and then I came back and said, hey, why didn't you ask us? And I'm like, good question.
Speaker 1:And a lot of companies want to upskill people too, because there's a huge need, especially now. Every company, whether it's like you're in insurance or real estate, they want to use AI and they need a workforce that uses AI and they are willing to pay a lot of times for education to upskill people that are already in it. If you work like in construction, probably not, but if you're in like a kind of more white-collar profession, like that's a viable path to take and that's really smart that you took that Before I get into the two years that you spent before going to the bootcamp how did you juggle your time as a busy adult doing the bootcamp, having a nine to five, all this stuff?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was very hard. I wrote an entire blog post about it Because I think I was giving someone some advice the other day and the number one thing that helped is, uh, finding time to unwind, or sorry. Two number one things, rather two things. There were two things that were very important here sure the first is, um having a support system.
Speaker 2:So my partner was extremely helpful in making sure that, like I don't have kids but I have like lots of critters in the house, so making sure the critters were away from me, making sure the critters were taken care of, um, and then also just like helping me out more around the house, uh, where there were things that I like couldn't keep up on. So a support system also. Like I talked to my mom a lot and so she was there whenever my partner wasn't able to like listen to me gripe about how hard it was in the moment or you know, nice yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 2:So a support system and then also finding time to unwind and finding time to have fun. I know it's so much easier said than done, especially because I am a very driven person. I am a very like go, go, go person, so it took a lot of effort for me to do that, but so worth it. To, like you know, go see a movie, take the night off. We were supposed to at least in the boot camp that I took, we were supposed to take Sundays off just to like unwind and let your brain like shut off, because that's also the best way for you to retain information is to not be constantly overloading your brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, me and my buddy Zubin that we run Parsity with. Our big thing is one you have to have the support of maybe not your family, honestly, because sometimes your family won't support you but whoever you live with. That's important. If you have a partner, wife, husband, whatever you're you want them to also believe in this and support you, because if not, you're really going to be working in spite of that.
Speaker 1:I'll admit that when I started learning to code, my family and friends kind of said wait, what like? Why you and it didn't? It didn't compute to them at all and I didn't have that much support. But I did have the support of my partner. Luckily she actually was like I think you, yeah think this is a decent idea. You know she wasn't, like you know, totally gung ho about it, but she had enough support to keep me driven in it too. That's really cool that you had that and I think that's really important. And not getting burned out, because how can you learn and retain information if you're just under so much stress? Right, like it's not possible. That's a that's really underrated advice that I think more people should think too, because just burning yourself out for a year, you're not going to be set up for the job, which is more difficult than the coding bootcamp in most cases. I've never met somebody that says, oh, now I got the job, now it's over. It's like, oh, now it really just started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I actually burned out pretty quickly because I was again super eager to learn all the things. So within my first year I burned out pretty quickly. Um, I had to take a big big step back. Um, there were some other like life things that happened. Um, so I was going through some grief and, uh, I actually, um, I don't know if you want to talk about this, I'm going to bring it up, but sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, please, um, but I actually got to such a like burnout point that I actually sought help, uh, which I think is very important to talk about as well, because I hadn't had someone else not talked about it publicly, I wouldn't have sought that help. But, um, I finally got my adhd diagnosis like several years after I knew I had it. So, but it's been very helpful to like go through therapy to find the medication cocktail that works for me, and I'm doing better than ever, so yay.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for sharing that, and I do know that tech tends to have an over-representation of people who are neurodivergent and I'm I'm not, honestly familiar. You know beyond, like the trivial knowledge we all know the word right? Could you just kind of explain, maybe in your own term, like what is ADHD and how does that affect you in your day to day as a software engineer or just generally?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll do my best. Yeah, the important thing to recognize is that everyone has their own brand of ADHD or neurodivergence, neurodivergence, isgence, neurodivergence is such a large umbrella but for me, for my ADHD, a lot of it is getting started and keeping going and especially as someone who works remotely, that's been a little bit challenging. So actually our LinkedIn connection helped me find a lot of different ways to find different motivations, if that makes sense. So I'm not very intrinsically motivated, but if I tell someone I'm going to do something, I'll do it. And then also I don't know if this is an actual term, but we may have coined a term of experiential motivation. So I mentioned earlier I really like puzzles. So I was having a really hard time getting motivation to start during the day and we were talking and fell across like I love sudoku puzzles. So he was like what if you tried doing a sudoku puzzle, like not a, like a goldilocks zone, like not too hard, not too easy?
Speaker 2:yeah and then you get that feeling of like I solved something, I did it, and then it gives you momentum for the rest of the day. So that's what I do now. Um, I start.
Speaker 1:That is interesting oh, okay, I I met a bit. I met a person that, like, was working with developers that were neurodivergent and also they said that like they were big into games. That was like their way. There was a psychologist and an IT guy. She was married to a guy in IT and she's a, like trained psychologist and she was big into games, especially for helping people with one unwinding and then two like as a way to like a routine for their day, and I thought that was really interesting. And have you noticed I don't know if you've noticed this, but there tend to be a lot of people in tech specifically that have ADHD and it seems like the kind of career that really lends itself to people that may have that condition.
Speaker 2:It does, and it's fascinating because my partner also has ADHD. I'm going to call him out, I guess, but he thinks very differently for me. So, as I mentioned, everybody has their own brand of it. So I am Ferrari brain over here, like I'm thinking like all cylinders firing constantly and the way that my neuropsychologist described it is I don't have brakes, I have regular car brakes for a Ferrari described it as I don't have brakes, I have regular car brakes for a Ferrari. So that's difficult but also exciting. Like I, when I get excited about a project, I'm like I'm all over the place.
Speaker 2:Like I have all these ideas, I have all these questions. Um, on the flip side, my partner is very thoughtful and like intentional, so he internalizes like everything that's been said and it's like that more analytical side of thing. Um, so it can be a very different experience, but um, another thing that, or in both of us experience again is like that starting motivation. So we've been working with body doubling a lot lately.
Speaker 2:So just like yeah even just we don't have to be doing the same thing, but if we're in the same room together or we're like nearby or like talking about what we're going to do, it's been helping a lot.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, a person at Parsity introduced me to that term body doubling and we started doing that within Parsity.
Speaker 1:We say we basically set up zoom rooms and I've always felt a little awkward, honestly, like when I'm like group works, I just tend to just go off and do my own thing. But when somebody introduced me to that term body doubling like oh, that's a really cool way to do it, like basically, you can just set up a room. It's not like hey, let's have small talk, it's like we're here to do work and the camera can be on off, but essentially it's a way to keep you accountable and like focused and like now I'm in for this hour, I'm here in this room with people doing work. It's the reason why I go to the coffee shop with less distractions may take me, you know, two hours or whatever at home and I'm kind of bumbling around or procrastinating or some things like that. That's a great idea to do. And if, where do you suggest people like, let's say, you're learning to code, right, where do you find people to body double with?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I have found, since becoming an engineer, I have become a lot more active on LinkedIn and I have met some wonderful people throughout the globe that I'm sure would be interested and willing so putting yourself out there. There's a lot of people building in public. Those people in particular who are interested in learning and growing are great, are great um, anyone that you know who's going through a similar journey. So, like I have a few people locally that I've met through a women in tech group that I run, um, who I I work on projects now with.
Speaker 2:But, like, um, I work on a we'll get to it, I guess. But I work on another side project where I'm a founding engineer and I connect with one of the founders, uh, often to just be like, hey, how do you, what do you think about this? Like, how does this work, and we just sort of talk through things, um, and sometimes just just be there. Um, yeah, but yeah, I think online is, especially if you are just learning to code and if you don't know anyone nearby, online is a great place to go. There's lots of discord servers, there's lots of slack organizations there's lots of like on linkedin.
Speaker 1:You can just ask, people will point you in the right direction yeah, yeah, you got a good point, like it really is honestly easier than it's probably been. I remember going to meetups and they were only in person and that was kind of like that was my, my one outlet, like where somebody showed me, like here's how you use a sublime text editor, which already sounds really antiquated, because I don't think anybody uses sublime text editors anymore. It feels like almost saying notepad or something like that, Switching gears to another one of your hobbies or maybe this is one of your, I don't know if it's a hobby, passion public speaking. I found this really interesting and it's something I've always struggled with, which is odd because I now speak on a podcast and I had to learn this kind of trial by fire how to speak in public. How do you think that's helped shape your career as a software developer and helped you one transition and maybe just generally helped you in a technical field?
Speaker 2:As far as my current like career, I think the ability to public speak and my like weird joy from public speaking which isn't for everybody, as you said has gotten me a lot of attention and a good like in a good way, like so I mentioned that my manager was extremely supportive.
Speaker 2:A lot of that is because I was willing to speak up. I was willing to train my team like in a good way. Um, like so I mentioned that my manager was extremely supportive. A lot of that is because I was willing to speak up. I was willing to train my team Like. I was willing to go the extra mile to to put my face out there and like be the person that was sharing all of this knowledge. Um so, so that helped, I think, in like building building the rapport, because I was able to. I work at a pretty small company, but I was able to get the C-suite attention because, as a manager, I was often talking, I was sharing, I shared information, I shared knowledge, so it was easy to like back me up if that makes sense, up if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:And then now, as an engineer, I am very willing to like create design documentation and then explain it to my team, or like um, I work a lot with the twilio api and a2p 10 dlc. For anybody who knows what the heck that is, uh, it's just really complicated, perhaps it is um.
Speaker 2:Basically, it keeps um companies from spamming you as a as a consumer, so it's good for you all it's it's uh, difficult for the, for the people going through it, but, um, I have a lot of understanding of how that works. So, um, the ability to like express why a solution would be better than another is very helpful. Um, and then also, I don't get as many opportunities to train now that I'm sort of lower end of the totem pole and the engineering side, but I have found opportunities to do that outside of work. So I've done several talks I am getting ready to do I don't know when this is coming out, but I am getting ready to do a lightning talk for gusto. I'm just talking about open telemetry, which is something that I am currently implementing and it's been fun to sort of share that, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So in that way it also gets attention in, like other areas. So I hope that doesn't come off the wrong way, but but I enjoy that, so it works for me. I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:No, totally. Yeah. I see this as like the skill that more people I mean I hate to say they need to get it, but I would say if you're looking to get into leadership in tech outside of tech, whatever you are going to have to learn how to express your thoughts publicly. You're going to have to get somewhat comfortable speaking.
Speaker 1:I remember I almost had a panic attack when I was flown to New York and had to speak in front of a bunch of executives about what my team was doing, and I had zero clue how to do this. I'd never done a PowerPoint presentation in my entire life and I'm not a young guy, but I never have and I had to learn how to do it with my principal engineer. He and I were studying how to do PowerPoint presentations. Once I did it, I kind of got hooked a little bit on it too, so I thought, oh, this was cool. I got to explain what I did in this way. I've made some big mistakes over the years by, you know, being too technical or just not knowing my audience very well. What are some practical things that you would tell you know the shy software engineer who's listening to this that they can get better at public speaking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you hit on one just a moment ago is figuring out who your audience is. So the more you know about who they are, the better you can convey your message. So you want to also find a safe space to start practicing, whether that's with friends, whether that's with like a colleague, that's with a colleague that you trust to both give you positive and critical feedback. That's a great place to start too, also, not only just practicing with someone in a safe space, but practicing in general. I recently joined Toastmasters I think actually it's been almost a year now.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:I like public speaking, but I also know that I have this Ferrari brain that like I'll get up there and I'll just say stuff. So I wanted to really practice practicing for for lack of a better way to say that so preparing something with a clean and concise message. It's typically like five minutes, so it's not that difficult, but it is kind of hard to remember all of that. So practicing it is very helpful. And another thing that I personally struggle with is pauses Adding the pauses in very intentional places can really convey your message very well.
Speaker 2:I'm working on it, but yeah, those are. I are, I think, some, some starting points. So think about your audience to convey the message, practice in a safe space and then practice and prepare in general and figure out pauses yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it there's. There's a lot to it. I watched this whole like Harvard course on it for me and me and the principal engineer guy I was working with and it was like where to put your hands and I'm like, oh, this is cool, like there's patterns and things you can do. It's not like I just assumed that, hey, some people got it and some people don't, and I was surprised to see. Then I started kind of studying how other people do it and I saw what are good speakers doing? Oh, they're doing some of these same things. And I saw there are patterns, just like coding or working out or whatever. There are tried and true ways to do things and even if you're not great at it, you can be good at it. I don't think I've ever been like a great public speaker, but I'm like, okay, I'm better than I was and it doesn't freak me out so much. Have you ever done this? Have you ever used like a camera and just talked into a camera to practice?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, sometimes I'll even. So I have this camera on my screen. Sometimes I'll just put up a zoom so I can, like real time, see myself, and I know it's super uncomfortable to re-listen or re-watch, but it is so worthwhile. Like I have picked up on things that I've done and I'm like oh, like that was really good or that was a little weird. Another thing that I want to share too that happened recently is I. So I gave my first version of my gusto talk last week and I was totally unprepared. Like I had note cards and whatever. Like that was the point, though I had just found out and I was preparing it. But try to lean into being yourself, and I know that that is so much easier said than done when you're up in front of a lot of people, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I was actually geeky in like the most humbling way because I was like really leaning into the awkward um and it. It made people feel comfortable. It was very relatable um so lean into it.
Speaker 1:I hear you people in a world full of rocket ship emojis and um and and chat gpt generated uh text online, people like to feel like you're, you're speaking to somebody genuinely and it might not be that you're for everybody, but people can feel it Like. Humans are really really good at sniffing out disingenuousness. It's crazy how good we are. We have like this sixth sense at least I think we do, I hope we do. But, um, I've actually read this that we're really good at like spotting, like fakes and if you can kind of be yourself, even if you're a little quirky or maybe you don't speak the king's english, um, because I've tried to do, I tried to like fit myself in a box, to be like I think this is how this person should speak or this is how they should dress and do, and it just didn't come off. It wasn't the, it wasn't interesting, and I think that's what you really want. You're telling a story. You want to engage people. You have to be a little bit interesting on the stage Before I let you go.
Speaker 1:There's one big topic that everybody wants to know. Learning to code is one of those things that like okay, there's a million articles and books about learning to code. You said you went to a coding boot camp. I think that nowadays there's a lot of distrust about coding boot camps Maybe rightfully so, maybe not, whatever One. I want to ask why did you decide to go to the coding bootcamps maybe rightfully so, maybe not, whatever One? I want to ask why did you decide to go to the coding bootcamp after learning for two years? I mean, you're obviously. You seem very intelligent. You seem like you probably could have figured this out on your own as well, but I want to hear from you, like, what made you make that jump?
Speaker 2:Totally, as I mentioned earlier on, like I don't have a lot of internal motivation. So I would start a course and I would do some of it for sure, and I would learn for sure, but I would fall off and I would get stuck in my own head. And I also mentioned that I have so many questions and of course I could look them up on the internet, of course, but I have no idea what's real and what's not. Like there are so many article pieces, like articles and opinion pieces out there that I, as a beginner, have no idea what's what. Yep.
Speaker 2:So one of the main reasons I wanted to do a bootcamp is both for the accountability but also for that next level of guidance, so that I could really ask those questions and get that deeper understanding that I could maybe get one day from reading tons of articles, but instead I could just have a real conversation with a human who's been through it and can share their experience. So, yeah, that was huge for me.
Speaker 1:I think that's big for everybody. I went on a similar path to I. I studied for like nine months on my own. I was actually building websites and I actually thought I was going to be hired as like my. My dream was like I'm going to be an html css developer. That was that was it. I said I don't want to learn javascript. That's terrible. I don't ever want to touch that stuff. You know plot twist I ended up now being a full stack developer for the entire time and never, ever really worked directly with HTML and CSS.
Speaker 1:But that was my plan and I still it. And this is over 10 years ago and I still was like, where do I learn? And I had these books that I was reading, like a book on HTML. Feel foolish even saying that now, but if I was learning now, I could only imagine how tough it would be. Like it would take me forever, because not only is it just more to learn, but because there's more to learn and there's more resources, and there's people like me saying what you should do or here's what I think. And then there's people that are writing articles and I'm like you don't even work as a software engineer and you have a popular article about what to do, and it's just so hard to sift through all this information. And yeah, I'm in Reddit too. I don't know, do you use Reddit? Are you on Reddit?
Speaker 2:at all Occasionally. Yeah, I do some research there once in a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like Reddit overall in general. I've done it for business research Anyway, I see just a ton of this doom and gloom, like don't go to a coding boot camp. And I'm like I don't know what to tell people anymore. I mean, I own a coding mentorship program and it's a bit different than a coding bootcamp, but like, if you want to learn this stuff and you want to go fast, then do a program that has something laid out for you. If you don't want to go fast, then go the other route.
Speaker 1:I've met people that said they took four years to kind of get their first job and I honestly don't think that's that big of a deal either. I just think, like, how fast do you want to go? You know, when I want to learn data structures and algorithms, I just paid for like a mentor to teach me that over the course of three months and for me that was worth the price. For some people I know it's not, but thank you for being like open and honest about that. And the job part too. This is the other part and, like most people, all we read online now is like no one can get a job. Like there are negative 10 jobs in software engineering, which one isn't true. I mean you just have to look at, like, the Bureau of Labor Statistics or just job data. What do you tell people right now? What would you be doing if you wanted to try to find a job as a software developer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually have a lot of people ask me this Of course.
Speaker 2:Especially on LinkedIn. I have a lot of folks who are, you know, new to tech following me and I am, first of all, upfront with them. Like I have never actually been through a technical interview in a full like thing. Networking, I mean that's what worked for me and that's what, like, I am actively building my network constantly in hopes that when I'm ready for a new role, it will either appear to me or I will have somebody to help me open the door, Because you really, I mean there are people who fight against, like the thousands of others who are applying to these jobs, but it's just unrealistic. So, especially for your first one, like, look, local, talk to your network. I mean that's the way to go. Yeah, I hope that that's helpful, but I am not an expert.
Speaker 1:No, I don't, I don't. I'm I'm kind of tired of hearing from experts, because I feel like we're not hearing from enough people that are really like that, have done it and are doing it and and yeah. Like I was recently on the job hunt and I was seeing just how worthless my resume was, it used to be that I'd actually take time and care about it. Now I'm like this is no one's looking at this.
Speaker 1:I got yeah, it's just, it's like playing the lottery and my my opinions have dramatically changed, actually in the last six months, based on what I've seen. I've seen a Parsity and I'm like this isn't working anymore. This whole I go seen a Parsity and I'm like this isn't working anymore. This whole like go on LinkedIn, hit easy, apply or just like applying in general, if I'm being honest, doesn't seem to work. Like I have recruiters in my network. This is I have 10 years of experience.
Speaker 1:Obviously, my, my situation is different, but I'm seeing the people at Parsity that have zero experience are doing what you did. They're reaching out to their network. They're reaching out to previous jobs they worked at, they're reaching out to schools they went to and then they're going through these back doors or they're going for jobs that might not even be online and I'm like LinkedIn is great to get your network, but as far as a job site, I'm just I'm really beginning to feel like it's not the right place to put all your eggs in a basket. Like to think you can get a job through LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:I think not directly, like maybe indirectly you will but applying through LinkedIn to me just doesn't seem like a thing to do much of anymore for now, and a lot of it is sort of like conflated anyway, because if you click the apply button, even if you don't actually apply, you get counted, or however that works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get counted for the thing.
Speaker 2:A thousand people have clicked on this yes of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but also on this, yes, um, but also I want to say like, although I'm not actively seeking a new job right now, um, again going back to that networking, circling back, I just talked to somebody the other day who has this new role um, similar to what you said, not even posted yet. Um just kind of had a conversation with them to see if it would be a good fit. So, if you invest time in your network, it does take time, but if you invest time in your network, it does take time, but if you invest time in your network, it can reward you. I don't want to say twofold, thousandfold, whatever.
Speaker 1:A lot. Yeah, I mean for sure. It's worth a lot, and I think I've said this before. I didn't take it seriously enough earlier on in my career, and I wish I had, because now I see the impact and I see just how important it is, especially now as we're moving towards. I don't know what's going to come next, but I think that everybody feels like LinkedIn isn't working. Recruiters can't find candidates, candidates can't find jobs. It's a social media network, but it's also a job site. It's like there's going to, there's going to be something that's going to disrupt it. I don't know what it is. Maybe, maybe I'll have to build it. I don't know, maybe that'd be my next big startup yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, all right, before I let you go, can I get your, can I get a couple of hot takes from you on a few topics? Sure, quick, quick hot takes Twitter versus LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Okay, why.
Speaker 2:Um, well, first of all, I don't. I haven't been on Twitter in years. Um, okay, mostly because I I have avoided social media for a very long time. Um, I actually started getting on LinkedIn, like as the bootcamp was rapid wrapping up, I started to engage on LinkedIn, but I found that I was meeting so many cool people from all over the globe. As I said, um, like, I have friends all over.
Speaker 2:Um and so I keep engaging for that, and I keep engaging because women in tech are like noticing me. They're telling me that they like hearing my story. Um, so LinkedIn for sure, it's been the best place to connect on a much deeper level than I ever expected if you're on Twitter, you hate LinkedIn, and if you're on LinkedIn, you usually hate Twitter.
Speaker 1:I'm part of the LinkedIn group I. I generally don't like the, the, the vitriolic landscape of Twitter in general and also the anonymity which I think breeds that. Okay, javascript versus TypeScript.
Speaker 2:Ooh TypeScript.
Speaker 2:Oh um, obviously I started with JavaScript, uh, in order to like learn TypeScript. But I was, you know, kind of like a lot of people who learn TypeScript. I was like, oh, these extra things I have to do to make it work. But I have seen the power of TypeScript If you actually add those guardrails. Like it is so amazing to be working on something that I haven't touched in months. And, you know, my ID tells me exactly what I'm looking for and tells me exactly what I should expect this type to be, this object this array, whatever.
Speaker 2:So that's been amazing to work with. It's worth the slight extra time to have much cleaner code.
Speaker 1:Took me years to come around. I'm always late to the party with stuff. I hated React too for years Now I never stopped using it. Then I hated Type typescript and now I've now I'm loving you to use it, but it only took me three or four years to to finally come. Come around.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, working with a cursor ai or no code tools or no ai code generation I actually have to admit that I haven't used Cursor, but I've heard amazing things so I need to try it. But I use GitHub, copilot and ChatGPT on occasion. I definitely do not rely on them and what I use it for mostly is pre-generating little bits and pieces as I go, but I usually kind of go line by line and I also really like it for unit tests, but it has created like silly unit tests that no one would test, so you have to be careful.
Speaker 2:but I think AI is definitely a boost when used correctly.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. Yeah, I use it to generate tons of bad code and then I whittle it down to finally give me something decent. Or sometimes I spend hours reprompting I hate to admit I've done that where I'm like oh, it's so close and I feel like an hour later I'm like why didn't I just write this? My freaking self. This was a huge waste of time. All right, last one YouTube or books for learning that's a tough one, um.
Speaker 2:If you had asked me, like a few months ago, I would have said books all the way. But lately I am finding the value in youtube, especially if you can like find those people that you believe are knowledgeable and you can trust. Um, like, I am trying to dip my toe into devops and so I started listening to um tech world with Nana I think that's how you pronounce her name Um, but she's had some really great, like high level concepts like how does Kubernetes work? Um, what the heck does Prometheus mean? Open telemetry, like high level concepts that I wanted to learn very quickly. So I think I'm leaning more towards YouTube lately, but there's valuable for sure.
Speaker 1:I yeah, I feel you. It's a diplomatic answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard because I would have said books maybe just even yesterday, because I feel like, okay, this person's more likely to be credible. But I'm like that's not always true either and now, because things are changing so fast, it's really difficult. I bought a book on large language models and was reading it and by the time I'm going to be done with this book, I guarantee that some of the information is going to be outdated. But if you can find the right YouTuber like there's a guy teaching linear algebra three blue, one brown if anybody would like to check that out.
Speaker 2:I heard you say something about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is amazing. It's crazy how much math I learned and I'm not a math person at all. Like I am one of those, one of those common people that's like, well, I don't want to know, math, but I finally was like, let me, let me learn some linear algebra, and broke it down just so well. So yeah, I mean I think a combination is important. Nowadays and I know most people, just just to be honest, most people don't read books, which I think was kind of sad, but it's another thing I still like reading.
Speaker 1:I still like reading. I still like reading Me too. I like to read junky mystery novels and stuff too.
Speaker 2:on top of all the yeah, I know, like stuff you used to find at, like the grocery store. You know, yeah right, I'm the weird person who likes nonfiction. I'm reading a book about dinosaurs right now though, okay.
Speaker 1:Sounds kind of on brand right.
Speaker 2:Quirky Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so where can people find you online?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I mentioned, linkedin is where I am mostly spending my time, so that's my first name. Last name altogether M-I-N-D-I-W-E-I-K. Mindy Weick, and I'm getting ready to launch a YouTube channel. We'll see how that goes. I'm sort of researching that. And then last thing is, I write a sub stack called code out loud. I just post.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just posted a couple of J meter things. I just did some performance testing, so that was fun. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun. And then I sometimes post advice stuff that I wish I had known whenever I was. You know, previous Mindy would have known.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I love it. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I have the links to those in the show notes for people that want to click on them and connect with you. Thank you so much for being on the show and hopefully we'll talk again, but I'm sure I'll see you around the LinkedIn streets.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Thank you for having me, Brian.
Speaker 1:Thank you. That'll do it for today's episode of the Develop Yourself podcast. If you're serious about switching careers and becoming a software developer and building complex software and want to work directly with me and my team, go to parsityio, and if you want more information, feel free to schedule a chat by just clicking the link in the show notes. See you next week.
